


To Eat a Bear

by bedlinens



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-05-04 09:30:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5329202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bedlinens/pseuds/bedlinens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a post episode 6.03 "Thank you story". No infringement of copyright intended. Carol deals with the dead and the bad news of the day, with Daryl's help.<br/>It does not follow the events that went down in later episodes but I hope you'll enjoy it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Eat a Bear

  After the world had gone to shit yet again, and the mess made by the wolves was cleaned up, there was a moment of pause, something surreal yet real in many ways. They had buried their dead, they had tossed the wolves from the zone, and then it was time, time to mourn.

  Seemed like it was all they were doing lately. Glenn… Carol thought for a brief moment before forcing herself to be strong. She could hear Maggie crying in the house and she just didn’t know how to help anymore. Today, she had played the part of a Wolf to save her people, but when it had been time to shed her clothes so as not to reveal who she really was at heart, she had noticed that the clothes were gone, but it felt like the skin didn’t want to be shed. She was not a wolf, like those people were, but she felt like a dangerous animal, and she wondered why God had decided that it would be funny to make her the personification of the expression “ a wolf in sheep’s clothing”.

  She wanted to say they just couldn’t catch a break, but it felt contrived. This was the end of the world, or it sure looked like it, it made sadly way too much sense for more crap to open and pile up on the previous crap than to expect sunny days, with rainbows.

  Carol remembered hearing Michonne plead with Rick, before Alexandria, asking if he didn’t want just “one more day”. Michonne had been right, as she always was, but this turn of phrase, it felt ominous with hindsight. They had come to have one more day, but nothing in the deal they had metaphorically signed did it say it would be a good day.

  Every day, Carol put on clothes she would have worn if Ed was still alive, and she would answer questions about her late husband and how much she missed him. Every day, she would miss Daryl who had been out on runs with Aaron, and she would curse, thinking that she needed to be stronger, that she didn’t need to crave his presence. How ridiculous was it that just the sight of him, and maybe a glance back, would have helped her through her day of pretending? She had survived, heaven or hell only knew why, and she found herself looking in the crowd for a peek at a guy, like it was high school all over and you hoped the bad boy you knew was really a good boy and would come up to you and ask you to be his girl. They didn’t get that innocence anymore, ever.

  She couldn’t bring herself to go in the house, she was too afraid losing Glenn would be the last straw. She hadn’t cared one bit for Mrs Neidermeyer, but she had seen her die, her and countless others. Death, by the hand of humans. It felt so wrong, but then again, why was she surprised? The Governor had been human. So had been the Termites. Humanity was no proof or guarantee of civilization and help.

  She stayed on the porch, and the door opened. It was Daryl, and she could tell from the look on his face he had been looking for her.

  “I don’t get how I can see death over and over again, and still not get affected by it. I mean I do, I’m human, but sometimes I feel like I’m faulty, like a toy wired wrong. You guys are sad and devastated but tomorrow will come whether we want it or not. I’m staying on the porch because I’m afraid of breaking down.”

  Daryl came to sit by her, and she knew he probably had an answer for her, but that he was just too shy when it came to speaking to actually go through and say what he wanted to say. He was good with gestures, flowers, hugs, rescue party from the tombs, but when it came to words, this was a path he was weary to take, and when in doubt, he had decided to not let himself be vulnerable.

  “We were the Atlanta Five, before,” he said, surprising her. “Guess this makes us the Atlanta Four.”

  This was as good as a soliloquy coming from him. She felt tears in her eyes, and hoped the lack of light would let them go unnoticed. She had cried before today, but she took no comfort in it. She was afraid though that if she cried now, with someone she trusted with her life, her tears may regain their properties, healing or otherwise. She was afraid of breaking down.

  In order to change the topic, and gain some momentum, she took Mrs Neidermeyer’s cigarettes, and lit one, before offering the pack to Daryl.

  “You don’t smoke,” he told her before taking a cigarette himself.

  “Sometimes I do. Today I do. Found them on the dead body of the woman who lived over there,” she said, pointing in the general direction of the house.

  “Pasta maker lady?”

  “Yeah, pasta maker lady,” she agreed.

  That could have been disdain or dehumanizing in calling a person by this sort of nickname, but it was not their intent. She had craved her pasta maker machine, and they were acknowledging life had been a bitch to her too.

  “When we lost Tyreese, and things were so dark, I found some smokes too,” he said, and she listened carefully.

  He was a man of very few words but they all had a purpose.

  “Pretended to miss the smoking. Maybe I did. You learn to live without those things. You had told me that I needed to let myself feel it. Was dead inside, even though I knew you were right.”

  She remembered too well that period in their lives.

  “Burnt my hand with one of those suckers. Burned it hard. Know what made me break down?”

  She nodded her head no though she suspected it would not be what one would expect as an answer.

  “Reminded me of when my mom used to pretend I was an ashtray. That was my breaking point.”

  The tears were coming back, and she had almost forgotten about the cigarette in her hand.

  “Point is, I needed to break down, and it happened, in the ugliest way ever. You on the other hand cannot break down. I don’t mean you can’t feel, I just mean you can’t actually break down. I don’t think you’d get back up, and it would kill me.”

  “So what do I do?” she asked, wanting to tell him how much he meant to her as he had managed to say it to her using such a inappropriate metaphor.

  “You take, one bite at a time, or one smoke at a time. You let go, piece by piece. Old proverb says anyone can eat a bear if they take a bite at a time. You take a bite at a time, I’ll be there.”

  “What if what I have to say is…”

  “Horrible? Terrible? This is the apocalypse, lady, we’ve got some leeway when it comes to what we can and can’t say.”

  She chuckled, while at the time, a tear rolled down her cheek.

  “I’m not ready,” she told him. “Not tonight. I can’t take that first bite. I want too but I can’t.”

  “Then you don’t. In the meantime, we’ll have a couple of smokes, and talk about all the shit Glenn used to do for us. The happy things, the sad things, whatever we want. He deserves it.”

  She looked at him, wanting to say that this was a lot like taking a bite, if she started mourning one of their own, but she realized that he knew it. It was too official and pretentious to say “today I take a bite out of my problems”, so he offered her a different way. They would smoke in memory of Glenn, and start mourning. He was no Alexandrian they didn’t give a fuck about, he had been a good man who deserved more than what he had had.

“One bite at a time,” she thought. “With him.”

  Gently, he wiped off the tear that had escaped her eye, and he used that motion to direct her head so that their eyes met.

  “No rush. Just a little morsel maybe. And we go from there.”

  “You’d do that?” She asked.

  ‘I’d do anything for you, Carol.”

  She put her head on his shoulder and they stayed silent for a while, before Daryl recounted his first tale about their fallen friend.

  Here, next to him, it seems doable, dealing with her grief one bite at a time. She had too much of it to let it all go at once, unless she was about to die. They would try things his way. Besides, it was Daryl. Somehow, it was worth everything in the world to have Daryl by your side as you dealt with your losses.

  He would have been a good counselor, she thought, as she found herself talking about Glenn.

  If his hand found hers, no word was spoken about it. If they sat a little closer to one another, same. If they shared a cigarette even though they had plenty more in the pack…

  One bite at a time and his hand in hers. It was a tough deal but for the first time, it seemed possible.


End file.
